WYOMING SCHOOLS AT A CROSSROADS: Cows on the Playground, Horses in the Classroom—Rural Teacher Corps Builds Pipeline

Certain experiences only happen to rural schoolteachers.

When Brooke Johnson, 35, taught at Slack Elementary, a one-room schoolhouse in Parkman, near Ranchester, a goat who lived next door often stood on the school’s porch and peered through the window, waiting for recess when the children would come out and play. Other times, Johnson and her students chased neighborhood cattle off the playground and back into their pasture before they could play hide and seek.